Logs:Mir Veln Zey Iberkern

Mir Veln Zey Iberkern
CN discussion of nonconsensual medical research, imprisonment, explicit description of torture
Dramatis Personae Akihiro, Erik, Spencer	2023-04-12 You got any words of advice for young revolutionaries?
Location <NYC> Freaktown - the Bronx
This corner of Riverdale has been transformed into a de facto autonomous zone, a tiny island of mutant community vibrant and festive against the staid, respectable appearance of the wealthy neighborhood all around. The mansions are still mansions, but many have undergone renovations and expansions since liberated from their previous inhabitants. They and the plants and the light posts and street signs are adorned with layers of holiday decorations from a wide range of cultural and religious traditions, including string lights of every shape, color, and descript. A large communal house overlooks a cul de sac closed off to vehicle traffic, an open-air marketplace that, though semi-circular, is still called the "town square". The surrounding houses are just as grand, many of them renovated and expanded since they were relieved of their previous inhabitants, making more space for both residents and guests. Any mutant who comes calling can get a bed and a warm meal, and most nights there's at least one party going on somewhere around here. Spence wasn't actually at the communal house supper, but he is out back now troubleshooting the firepit. Perhaps some of the fuel was damp, or perhaps whoever built the fire wasn't paying enough attention, but either way there's a bit more smoke than most people are probably willing to tolerate for a nice after-meal yarn. He's wearing a blue t-shirt with a white cartoon goose carrying a knife in its bill, gray jeans, and black sneakers with rainbow laces, the kippah on his head styled after a cartoon sun. There's a whole set of fire-tending tools on a rack but instead Spence is managing just fine with a bent stick, his smile blooming slow as the fire settles and stops spitting so much. Erik is making little effort to disguise himself today -- with no cape and no helmet, his identity is technically still in the realm of plausible deniability, but the disguise that has been crumbling over the last year is fully shed. He's in a crisp black three piece suit, smartly tailored to his still broad, still strong frame, the vest a deep blood-red over pale lavender dress shirt, top buttons undone and collar open, polished black wingtip oxfords only a little muddy from some kibitzing on the lawns of Freaktown. No dye in his hair, now, it's all bone white and combed back to accentuate the widow's peak on his forehead. A chain runs around his neck and dips under his shirt. On his hands the metal link bracelets have returned to their place, as has a slim gold band returned to his right ring finger. His walk companions have changed over the course of his afternoon and evening circuits through Freaktown, but the one hovering just out of sight has been dismissed for the moment. Erik is justifying this decision to present company as they approach the fire pit "-- surely poor Astra has earned her rest, hm? If they had the inkling to find us here today, they surely would have done so with enough time to make the nine o'clock news." His eyes catch on Spence at the fire as they approach with a small furrow of his white brows -- at least, until the fire catches, and he can nod approvingly at the teenager. “They’re more than welcome to try, but I’d suggest they at least send the national guard.” Akihiro sounds confident enough, but the repeated clenching and unclenching of his right fist betray his underlying nerves. He’s dressed casually than Erik, with a red t-shirt that’s tucked into deep purple cargo pants and a pair of tactical boots. “I assume they think we’re mobile. Haven’t really looked under their nose yet but they will soon, we can’t be too complacent.” His hushed words fall completely silent as he follows the older man’s gaze towards Spence, eyeing the teenager warily. "Sorry about the smoke, it should be clearing up soon if you wanna go ahead and pull up a --" Spence looks up from his work with a bright friendly smile that freezes when he sees who's approaching, though he unfreezes quickly enough at Erik's nod of approval. He stands up hastily, still holding the singed branch, then looks kind of unsure what to do with either himself or it. His wide gray eyes dart from Erik to Akihiro, then back for a dose of his own wary eyeing. "Chag sameach," is what he finally settles on as he rolls the stick over and over in his palms. Erik's eyes widen at, of all things, chag sameach. His eyes lift to the skullcap on the boy's head, then back down to the rest of him. "Gut yontif," comes -- maybe a little gruffer than Erik intended, for his tone is immediately softening. "Please. Do not stand on our account." To Akihiro, Erik says, "I think we can spare a moment of complacency," as he goes to sit himself upwind of the fading smoke, pulling a chair with his power to this side of the pit, "to speak with our people's children. Sit, Akihiro. Enjoy the fire." Erik twists to look at Spence more closely. "What is your name, child?" “Gut yontif.” Akihiro echos, relaxing slightly. “A moment.” he agrees, grabbing a chair and joining Erik next to the fire. “I like to think we’ve done a reasonably good job of weeding out any spies or troublemakers, but we have more to worry about than that.” he lets out a long sigh, visibly deflating. “We can discuss that another time though.” Spence takes the slightly pointed Yiddish in easy stride, but can't quite disguise his somewhat stereotypical teenaged irritation about being called "child". But he moves on quickly enough, pulling up a chair of his own, close enough to adjust the fire. "Spencer Holland, Sir." There's a definite note of pride when he adds, "I'm Jax Holland's youngest. It's an honor to meet you..." He trails off. Bites his power lip. "What should I call you?" His eyes skips between the two men again, and he appends, "Y'all?" Erik's eyes light up. "Spencer Holland," he repeats, delighted recognition in his tone, leaning forward in his chair. "I have heard of you, young man, and I am most pleased to make your acquaintance ." At the question of his name, Erik hums thoughtfully. "Most here know me as Max, but I have many names if you would like to choose. He --" his head tilts to Akihiro at his side, "-- calls me Magnus, from time to time. I was Henryk, for a moment. A Michael, as well." The most famous names, the ones everyone here absolutely know already, remain unlisted. "Take your pick." “I’m Akihiro,” Akihiro introduces himself, head dipping slightly, “but you’re welcome to just call me gramps. Whatever you feel like.” He seems to relax a little bit more, eyes drifting closed for a moment as the sleep he’s been avoiding creeps up on him, before jerking back up to alert. “I haven’t met your father yet, but I only hear good things.” "Magnus!" Spence doesn't add "that's so cool" out loud, but it would be hard to interpret his excitedly hushed tone and wide-eyed smile any other way. He tilts his head at Akihiro. "Is 'Gramps' like, a joke nickname or are you like actually really old?" He only sounds slightly doubtful of the latter. Slightly! "My pa is pretty amazing, I hope you get the chance to meet him soon." His excitement flags, but he hangs onto his smile. To Erik, "And I wish you hadn't met him the way you did. You got along though? I didn't wanna ask him a lot about you cuz of opsec and all." "Akihiro is remarkably well preserved, even for us. Anecdotally, mutants tend towards longevity -- when we are able to grow old in the first place," says 94 year old Erik. His smile at Spence's excitement is wide and not fading even at the more somber addition. "We only were permitted the one conversation during our brief overlap there, but it was a bright moment among many dreary days. And he," Erik leans in a little closer, as if this is a secret, "impressed upon me strongly that you are a very intelligent and passionate young man, and that I should be looking forward to the many great things you will do for our kind someday." “Remarkably.” Akihiro echoes. “I’m only seventeen years younger than Magnus.” He confirms, leaning forward in his seat slightly, hands gripping his knees. “I’m sure asking is a great way to end on one of their watch lists, assuming they haven’t just preemptively done it already.” Spencer tilts his head slightly. "Whoa, that's so cool!" He cringes and quickly appends, "I don't mean it's cool that you're old. Not that you're not cool! Or that being old isn't..." He evidently just noticed an urgent necessity to nudge the logs in the fire this way and that, probably saying a silent bracha that its dancing light conceals his blush at both his own awkwardness and Erik's praise. "Seventeen years sounds like a lot to me, but I get what you mean. I fight back in small ways, and that's important, too, but I'm working on bigger." His smile tugs sharper, his wholly unnecessary fussing at the fire forgotten. "I wouldn't wanna let my elders down. You got any words of advice for young revolutionaries?" After Spencer’s request for advice Akihiro stands up, gaze moving slightly past him and to the fire. “It’s like I said earlier, don’t grow complacent. I’m not saying to overwork yourself and ignore your friends, but to watch out for feeling like you’ve done enough. The fight never really ends no matter how much you want it to.” He looks at Spencer now. “When most of us get captured we don’t get cells. Cages, experiments,” his wrist straightens out and his claws pop, the firelight dancing across the metal, “brainwashing, torture, and worse. You have to stay safe and make sure you have good allies.” “Peace, Akihiro. With his family, I suspect he knows those lessons already." The command is clear but the following comment from Erik is quiet, not so much judgemental as it is melancholy. "Certainly he is right -- our enemies have always preferred we exterminate each other. Safety and trust are precious." His gaze turns to the fire in quiet contemplation. "You are... sixteen or so, nu? A year or two left at your school?" Erik taps one finger against his sternum, knocking against something below his shirt. "Cherish this time. Leave the revolution for a moment longer. You will need as many happy memories as you can gather to sustain you through the dark years." The flames flicker, crackle. "The war has already come for you, young man -- but your elders fight so that you do not need to go to its front before you are truly ready.” Spence nods seriously to show he's listening to Akihiro's advice, then suddenly goes still, though it's hard to say whether in response to Sudden Claws or the words that accompany them. His fingers tighten around his fire poking stick, and he very deliberately sets it down. Does not speak, though. Listens to Erik's advice, too, his Active Listening Nods shorter and jerkier than before. Silence falls for a beat, filled with the faint crackling of the fire and the sounds of Freaktown lively beyond the circle of its light. "Yeah, I'm sixteen." He addresses this to the fire, not looking at either of the others. "I got sent to Prometheus when I was four." There's a quiet intensity to his words, though he's struggling to keep them slow and even. The intensity in his eyes is not so quiet when he lifts them to Akihiro. "I get you might not know that if you've been living under a rock, but you damn well know my pa is in jail right the fuck now for breaking us out of those labs." He stands up, too, straight and tall if gangling at nearly six foot. "My whole life I've watched people I love get locked up and tortured and killed fighting this war." His jaw tightens -- and his shoulders, his whole body, really -- but when he continues his voice is softer and strained and trying to break. "I'm sorry for what they did to you, and I respect the risks you take for our people, but do not patronize me about what happens when we get caught." Akihiro just listens to Spencer, his claws sinking back into his forearm. His expression is deadly serious, up until the teenager finishes speaking and he finally cracks a genuine smile at him. “I like your spirit, and I apologize for coming across patronizing. It’s just important to hold onto those feelings without letting them consume you, hard as that may be.” Those last words also seem to be aimed slightly towards Erik. “I lost three decades of my life. They grabbed me in the sixties, and the next thing I know I’m joining up with Magnus. I’m not sure what exactly they had me doing but I can only guess. The last memory I had was being submerged in a tank and then injecting molten adamantium into my bones. I don’t know-” Erik tilts his head towards Akihiro, as if expecting his apology. His eyes narrow when it comes pointed at him and not just Spencer. “Akihiro, that is enough.” This correction comes out sharp over the (slightly) younger man’s overshare, somewhere after I don’t know what leaves Akihiro’s mouth. “All of us here have been cut open for human curiosity. All of us here they have tried to form into weapons, but that is not who we are. We are more than the horrors they visited upon us. How do these contests of who has suffered the most, the longest, help? This, too, is a strategy of the enemy to make us weak.” Erik has not stood, but the force behind his words is not lessened. Softer, now, almost to himself instead of to Spence, lifting his gaze to the heavens, “… oy, but I wish you had more childhood than I had.” Spencer does not relax at the apology. Looks, in fact, about ready to raise his voice, until Akihiro starts recounting his experiences. He clamps his mouth shut and sits back down. The tension doesn't exactly leave him as Erik speaks, but it does change in quality as his anger slowly recedes. "I had a childhood." It's hard to say whether he's sounding defensive or still having trouble with his voice. "Surrounded and cared for by the family that rescued me. Some of them are your..." He hesitates here, very briefly. "...comrades. I didn't know you also..." He bites his lower lip. "It's hard to compare stuff like this, but I'm sorry for what they did to you, too." His eyes are very wide now, regarding Erik with something that isn't quite awe but definitely approaches it. "I'm glad you outlived them." Akihiro does for once look embarrassed. “Sorry, didn’t intend for it to seem like a contest, any moment any of our people suffer is too long. I just wanted him to know that I understand it, as much I can anyway. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it’s like having to go through Prometheus at such a young age.” Erik shakes his head. “I understand you, but —” he looks from Akihiro to Spence, the firelight rendering his expression harsher, angrier then it is. It softens into something that's just -- deeply sad on the lines of his face. “— we do not have to burden every youth with so many generations of pain.” He sighs, sitting up to shuck off his jacket and drape it over the back of his chair. "Of course you didn't know -- I do not make habit of telling the world everything that happened there." When he settles back, it's to fuss with his sleeves, rolling both up to the elbow and exposing the tattoo on his arm. "This number -- it does not exist, and that is enough to cause the historians to doubt my story. If they cannot accept that I was there at all, why tell them of Mengele's forgotten colleagues? Even if someone listened--" he snorts, dismissive, "--the same way some ignore Prometheus' victims, they would ignore me -- I was only a Jew, the rest was incidental." He lets the fire flare for a moment, considering Spence's words. "Is that enough?" Erik turns his head to look at Spence, now, serious. "I outlived the one who held the scalpel against my flesh, took his life as he had meant to take mine, but I have not yet outlived them." His gaze is lifting again to the yarmulke on Spence's head. "As long as our people are in cages, we have not outlived them. As long as our people have to hide, anywhere, mir veln zey iberlebn remains just a prayer." Spence has forgotten to perform active listening, but it's probably pretty obvious he's attending anyway. He's retrieved his stick at some point, not to poke at the fire but just to fidget, his fingers fluttering restlessly along its length. He sits up a little straighter when Erik shows them the tattoo, looks very much like he was about to interrupt but bites back whatever he was going to say. When Erik does fall silent, he only nods once, also very seriously. "No, you're right. But to me, it's not just that you survived. You survived, and 80 years later you're still fighting and you still care and..." He struggles for words here, brows knitting tight. "And that's not enough but it's something. To me, anyway." “You’re right.” Akihiro dios his head slightly. “They don’t need to know the specifics, but they do need to know that we’re here, and that we’re fighting to stop it from happening again.” It’s his turn to fall silent for a moment, watching the fire. “I do want you to know I’ll continue the fight as long as I have to, but I’d like to teach one day too and keep children from living life like I did. Sure I was a happy child, but that often came at the expense of others. It could just be that my age is finally catching up to me though.” There’s something left unsaid, longing visible on his face as he stares unblinking into the flames. “79,” Erik corrects gently. “79 years of — mostly freedom, come October. Not all of those I spent fighting. Each one of them was fought for — and I am honoured that my battles still have meaning for the generations behind me.” Erik smiles, something deeply melancholic in the lines around his eyes when he does so, addressing Akihiro as he stands. “I am sure one day, my friend, we can find you a classroom to lead. When the war is over. There is life in you yet, I am sure.” He turns, plucks his jacket from the back of this chair.“My regards to your father and my well-wishes to you, Spencer Holland, in your studies and all your endeavours.” Erik extends his left hand to Spence, tattoo brightly lit in the fire’s glow. Leans in with a quieter, but more intense voice: “Do not settle for outliving them. Mir veln zey iberkern.” Spence's nod to Akihiro is again very grave, once up and once down, but at least he doesn't look actively hostile. "Good. I will fight, too. Until we're all free." His gaze slips over to Erik. "But, maybe not on the front line just yet." He rises when Erik does. "Thank you, Sir -- Magnus. The well-wishes might have to be like, really cryptic, until he gets out. I don't trust those pigs as far as I can throw them, and I can throw them to the end of the Universe." He wipes the ash and soot from his hand before shaking Erik's. "Iberkern," he repeats the word, his pronunciation clumsy and his brows furrowed in concentration. "Over...turn?" His eyes are wide with admiration, and the uncertainty in his tone is gone when he renders the whole phrase into English, "We will overthrow them."